[BlueOnyx:27073] BlueOnyx 5210R/5211R: YUM updates and new installation images

[Michael Stauber]

Hi all,

See: 
https://www.blueonyx.it/news/340/15/BlueOnyx-5210R5211R-YUM-updates-and-new-installation-images/

BlueOnyx 5210R/5211R: YUM updates and new installation images:
===============================================================

Today we released the accumulation of two months of YUM updates for 
BlueOnyx.

This is a rather massive set of updates that introduces a lot of 
changes, fixes and modifications. BlueOnyx 5211R received the most of 
these, but some feature updates and fixes were also released for 
BlueOnyx 5210R. Let us break those down:

BlueOnyx 5211R only:
--------------------

The network handling of BlueOnyx 5211R has been overhauled 
substantially. It now supports all types of network interface names and 
doesn't specifically require that the primary network interface is named 
"eth0".

Additionally it will no longer create Virtual Network Interfaces 
(eth0:X) for each additional IP address that is used by Virtual Sites. 
Instead all IP addresses (IPv4 and IPv6) are bound directly to the 
primary network interface.

The network configuration script /root/network_settings.sh as well as 
the GUI pages for base-network and base-wizard have been extended to 
allow to configure the network in one of three ways:

- Traditional eth0 primary interface (default)
- Bridged br0 network (for Incus containers)
- DHCP

You can now choose between those three options. The first option is the 
default one and presents the previous behavior. The second option 
(Bridged br0 network) will create a br0 bridge and will set up the 
physical primary network interface as slave for said bridge. This option 
is only really relevant for some specialized hosting purposes. The final 
option is "DHCP" and allows you to configure your BlueOnyx to 
auto-configure its network settings from a DHCP server. If this option 
is chosen, then all Vsites on the server will change their IP address to 
the single IPv4 and/or IPv6 IP address obtained via DHCP. This option 
should only be used if static IP addresses are not supported in the 
environment where you want to run your BlueOnyx (such as certain clouds).

The GUI pages for the setup wizard as well as "Network Settings" / 
"TCP/IP" have been updated accordingly as well.


Changes for BlueOnyx 5211R and 5210R:
-------------------------------------

The following changes are present in both BlueOnyx 5211R and 5210R:

Disk Quota: Optional!
---------------------

Having filesystem disk quota for Groups and Users for /home (and/or /) 
is now optional. The BlueOnyx ISO image and the manual install methods 
will still try to configure your installed BlueOnyx to use disk quota if 
possible. But if the underlying file system doesn't support it (like in 
some clouds), then BlueOnyx can make do without. It then uses alternate 
means to determine Vsite and User disk usage as well as alternate 
methods of enforcing configured disk quota limits.

If a User or Vsites is over-quota, then the following mechanisms will 
kick in:

Email: The MTA config files will be reconfigured to bounce messages to 
over-quota Vsites and/or Users back to the sender with the distinct 
error message that the user is over-quota.

FTP: The FTP service of over-quota Vsites and/or Users will be modified 
so that they can no longer upload or create files by FTP. Deletion of 
files and folders is still possible, though.

PHP: The PHP settings of Vsites that are over-quota will be modified so 
that PHP is no longer able to create new files.

These limitations will automatically be removed once the Vsite or User 
are again back within their allowed quota allocation.

GUI Activity Reporter:
----------------------

Since our last major Sauce::Service overhaul the GUI would finish saving 
changes and allow you to navigate to other things while the actual 
changes were still being performed in the background. This sometimes 
lead to uncertainty if a change was actually being completed 
successfully or when it would have finished propagating. To make that 
more transparent we added a "spinner" at the top right of the GUI.

This element will appear when the GUI is performing background tasks 
such as restarting services. It will show which services are currently 
pending a restart. Once it has finished all scheduled tasks the element 
will go into hiding again.

Further changes and improvements:
---------------------------------

There are too many to list. Changes were made to the port assignments of 
PHP-FPM pools to better prevent usage of ports that are already in 
usage. The Server Administrator management page got several fixes for 
ACL assignments. The Vsite- and User-management pages got minor fixes 
and the "Preview Vsite" feature (broken since long) has been disabled 
until a proper fix can be worked out. Session handling and error 
reporting got fixes in several places, but we can scratch that up as 
bugfixes and minor general improvements.

Updated Installation Images:
----------------------------

Updated ISO images (as well as virtual disk images) for BlueOnyx 5211R 
and 5210R have been released today as well and can be found on our 
download page.

Additionally: For the first time we released Incus images for BlueOnyx 
5211R and 5210R. Both "regular" as well as "cloud" images. The 
instructions on how to make use of them is mentioned at the bottom of 
our download page.

In closing:
-----------

We hope you enjoy the new updates and just in case you run into any 
issues with these YUM updates, then please file a Support Request via 
the GUI or reach out to us via the usual communication channels such as 
Email or the BlueOnyx mailing list.

-- 
With best regards

Michael Stauber